Unobtrusive Sleep Physiological Monitoring and Enhancement Technologies

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Sleep disorders and their accompanying health problems are among important health issues in Canada, and there is a need to develop improved technologies to objectively evaluate sleep, manage sleep, and monitor health status during sleep. Irregular sleep patterns have been linked to a higher risk of neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Sleep problems affect one-in-two Canadian adults and their prevalence is higher in women and increases with age. In addition to its critical role in well-being and quality of life, sleep provides a unique baseline window into human body function at rest that can help characterize health and disease patterns. For example, it has been found that blood pressure and heartrate profiles during sleep are strongly associated with deaths, cardiovascular events, and progressive loss of renal function, independently of their daytime profiles. Moreover, many health-related events, such as stroke, may occur during sleep while we are unconscious leading to late diagnosis and treatment. While there exists medicine, supplements, and meditation therapies to improve sleep disorders, there has been little technological effort to improve and manage sleep and to monitor sleep physiology and health. The operation of most current physiological monitors relies on active interaction with user/expert, continuous usage of such monitors can be disturbing and disruptive to sleep, and the analysis of recorded data requires expert interpretation. There is a need for portable, unobtrusive, and inexpensive technologies that can continuously monitor and enhance sleep in real-world environments such as the home. The main goals of the proposed research are the design and development of 1) smart and unobtrusive intervention technologies for sleep enhancement and management, 2) automatic algorithms to aid in the analysis and interpretation of physiological data, overcome the intrinsic limitations of human perception and bias, estimate important physiological parameters, and detect and predict health-related issues, and 3) wearable and contactless technologies for continuous in-sleep physiological measurement without disturbing sleep. The proposed research program is expected to have a significant impact in the field of Biomedical Engineering and on Sleep Technologies. Novel techniques for unobtrusive physiological monitoring and sleep enhancement will be developed, including new wearable and contactless sensors, signal processing methods, and machine learning algorithms. The developed technologies are expected to have significant impact on quality of life of Canadians, particularly those affected by sleep problems, such as women and the elderly. Moreover, Doctoral and Master's students will be trained in interdisciplinary and collaborative research involving human subjects, and so will develop skills of value to the Canadian biomedical and wearable devices industries, the sleep research community, and healthcare.